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Vesayen
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 18-07-2003 20:58
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#1
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France commits idiotic act to try to show it is superior to America... bans "e-mail&quo
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Put an end to popups!
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http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/artic...1056EDT0544.DTL
In latest language defense, France bans term 'e-mail'
JAMEY KEATEN, Associated Press Writer Friday, July 18, 2003
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(07-18) 07:56 PDT PARIS (AP) --
Goodbye "e-mail," the French government says, and hello "courriel" -- the term that linguistically sensitive France is now using to refer to electronic mail in official documents.
The Culture Ministry has announced a ban on the use of "e-mail" in all government ministries, documents, publications or Web sites, the latest step to stem an incursion of English words into the French lexicon.
The ministry's General Commission on Terminology and Neology insists Internet surfers in France are broadly using the term "courrier electronique" (electronic mail) instead of e-mail -- a claim some industry experts dispute. "Courriel" is a fusion of the two words.
"Evocative, with a very French sound, the word 'courriel' is broadly used in the press and competes advantageously with the borrowed 'mail' in English," the commission has ruled.
The move to ban "e-mail" was announced last week after the decision was published in the official government register on June 20. Courriel is a term that has often been used in French-speaking Quebec, the commission said.
The 7-year-old commission has links to the Academie Francaise, the prestigious institution that has been one of the top opponents of allowing English terms to seep into French.
Some Internet industry experts say the decision is artificial and doesn't reflect reality.
"The word 'courriel' is not at all actively used," Marie-Christine Levet, president of French Internet service provider Club Internet, said Friday. "E-mail has sunk in to our values."
She said Club Internet wasn't changing the words it uses.
"Protecting the language is normal, but e-mail's so assimilated now that no one thinks of it as American," she said. "Courriel would just be a new word to launch."
This is a blatent retailiation of our replacement of the term "French Fries" with "Freedom Fries".
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KrazyHorse
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Macedonia
May 2001
time: 00:29
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quote:
Originally posted by Vesayen
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/artic...1056EDT0544.DTL
In latest language defense, France bans term 'e-mail'
JAMEY KEATEN, Associated Press Writer Friday, July 18, 2003
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(07-18) 07:56 PDT PARIS (AP) --
Goodbye "e-mail," the French government says, and hello "courriel" -- the term that linguistically sensitive France is now using to refer to electronic mail in official documents.
The Culture Ministry has announced a ban on the use of "e-mail" in all government ministries, documents, publications or Web sites, the latest step to stem an incursion of English words into the French lexicon.
The ministry's General Commission on Terminology and Neology insists Internet surfers in France are broadly using the term "courrier electronique" (electronic mail) instead of e-mail -- a claim some industry experts dispute. "Courriel" is a fusion of the two words.
"Evocative, with a very French sound, the word 'courriel' is broadly used in the press and competes advantageously with the borrowed 'mail' in English," the commission has ruled.
The move to ban "e-mail" was announced last week after the decision was published in the official government register on June 20. Courriel is a term that has often been used in French-speaking Quebec, the commission said.
The 7-year-old commission has links to the Academie Francaise, the prestigious institution that has been one of the top opponents of allowing English terms to seep into French.
Some Internet industry experts say the decision is artificial and doesn't reflect reality.
"The word 'courriel' is not at all actively used," Marie-Christine Levet, president of French Internet service provider Club Internet, said Friday. "E-mail has sunk in to our values."
She said Club Internet wasn't changing the words it uses.
"Protecting the language is normal, but e-mail's so assimilated now that no one thinks of it as American," she said. "Courriel would just be a new word to launch."
This is a blatent retailiation of our replacement of the term "French Fries" with "Freedom Fries". |
Not likely. In Quebec the officially approved term from the Office de la Langue Francaise has been courriel for ages.
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st_swithin
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10069
Nov 2002
time: 05:29
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Do you know why we have an April Fool's Day?
The French refused to use the same calendar as the rest of the world, so up until a few centuries ago, they'd have been complaining of this crappy Thermidore weather (instead of July).
How many Americans have heard of Bastille Day? How many Americans have heard of April Fool's Day?
I rest my qedA55.
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Zulu Elephant
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If the majority of the French people (the article doesn't mention numbers) want to protect their language then how dare anyone sit here and call the decision stupid?
If they feel their language - part of their culture - is being eroded then why shouldn't the government attempt to reverse it if the people feel strongly about the subject - It's not like they're banning the word from common usage. They are simply insructing their own civil service to use French rather than English. What could be wrong with that?
As Brits, Americans, Canadians, Australians and the like, it is easy for us to act as if we are morally superior for excepting a VERY FEW foreign terms into our language (can anyone think of more than a handfull over the last decade). Non-English speaking nations are living in an age when virtually ALL new technological developments come with a new English addition to their vocabulary - every day a higher percentage of their language is of english origin.
We may say "What difference does it make where a word comes from" but that is an easy view to take when, unlike the english speaking world, the main pull on their cultural direction is from a single source (American or, more broadly, Anglo-Saxon nations) and not from a hundred different, diverse, new and interesting small sources as in America.
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Comrade Tassadar
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quote:
Originally posted by Sandman
Doesn't take much to set off the raving French-bashers these days. They're the real xenophobes. |
DarthVeda (2)
Vesayen
Vel (2)
Sava
Oerdin
Japher
Plato
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Zulu Elephant
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quote:
Originally posted by Velociryx
Hmmm....what does this suggest about where those technological developments come from? |
I think i implied in my post that the new technological innovations had english names because they were being developed in english speaking countries. i would hope that was obvious to most people here.
quote:
I don't really think the English-speaking world should apologize for their innovation, nor for using the English language to term said innovation |
i never said and never meant that "the English-speaking world should apologize for their innovation".
They should be proud of their innovation but not seek to impose their language upon the rest of their world bacause of it.
"Telephone", "Television" and the like all have different words around the world despite being invented in the English-speaking world. To become angry or offended (as many here seem to be) at the fact that their might be a difference word for "e-mail" somewhere in the world is as ridiculous as becoming angry at a non-English version of television or telephone.
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Apolyton Time is 00:29. |
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But I commend them for successfully trolling the Americans on this board 
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